Feedback: Hunters

[Hocuspawkiss-moon-guard]

Does when it’s official feedback tbh, can link you tons of feedback threads where it’s positive too because the changes are well received. Further triple+posting is a no no.

@Syegfryed-tol-barad

then you should tell that to blizzard, and ask then to implement what they intent, because they are 100% soloable

Would be awful if they were not, needing groups for everything feels awful because groups are not always available or up.

[Ghonhir-living-flame]

@Hocuspawkiss-moon-guard

Would be awful if they were not, needing groups for everything feels awful because groups are not always available or up.

how do you think non hunters/warlocks do these things then?

[Tali-silver-hand]

Agree 1000000%

[Syegfryed-tol-barad (Syegfryed)]

@Ghonhir-living-flame

how do you think non hunters/warlocks do these things then?

they have different tools to deal with then, hunter tool is the pet.

[Ghonhir-living-flame]

@Syegfryed-tol-barad

they have different tools to deal with then

they do not have any special tools hunters dont have for the content we’re talking about

[Syegfryed-tol-barad (Syegfryed)]

@Ghonhir-living-flame

they do not have any special tools hunters dont have

They sure have it, you need to play7 then and check out

[Ghonhir-living-flame]

I play plenty of other specs lol. A hunter is NOT reliant on a pet to function in the open world or delves.

[Thalanas-stormrage (Thalanas)]

I mean unless you are a blood DK good luck soloing an elite or like a world boss some aspects of the game even with a pet cant be soloable dont use that to justify MM`s NEEDING a pet. Hopefully Blizzard keeps them around for those who like it but if not then GG and lets enjoy the future of the spec

[Thalanas-stormrage (Thalanas)]

100000% agreed

[Vortan-proudmoore]

well said

[Thalanas-stormrage (Thalanas)]

Very well put ditto!

[Rankin-shandris (Rankin)]

Also, lots of elite rares nowadays have much shorter leashes before resetting. So that makes it more complicated trying to kite them in a tiny area and hoping they don’t bug out and go back to full health.

[Azzy-amanthul (Azzy)]

Yeah… but nar.
I mained druid this season cause our raid needed healers. Got AOTC and a 2500 rating but you do you.

[Fearfox-zuljin]

@Markelf-zuljin

Class Tree feedback:

• Kindling Flare - This talent will still never be taken other than for Dark Flame Cleft in S2.
• Revise Roar of Sacrifice - Revise this talent to protect a target/party for 10% DR or the HP of our pet down to 1% HP.
  • Alternatively, move this talent into the PvP talent section, our class tree is bloated with PvP talents that bring no value in PvE.
• Ghillie suit - Janky to play around with and should also allow us to camouflage in combat - mages already have this with their invisibility.
• Scare Beast - This node needs to be removed or replaced with something similar to Priest/DK’s ability to temporarily control a beast so it may see some usage in the future. It has 0 usage in PvE and very limited usage in PvP.
• Eagle Eye/Eye of the Beast being limited to their respective spec is fine; they are very rarely used as is.

Class Utility:

• Hunter’s Mark needs to increase the first and last 20% HP by 5% damage taken while applying a 30y radius debuff aura. Perhaps additionally, the marked target takes increased crit damage so there’s slight enthesis on the marked target.
• Alternatively, an increased crit chance & damage 1h raid buff would synergize well with all 3 hunter specs decently.
• Horsehair Tether should be in the class tree under Binding Shot - Hero Trees should NOT have utility. I suggested that Binding Shot did this “grouping to the center of the arrow” mechanic in the Beta feedback post several times.

Pack Leader:

• Shell Cover is just as bad, if not, somehow worse than Den Recovery which I didn’t think was possible. This defensive needs to block damage while at max health or do something else to be more M+ viable like grant 1% Damage Reduction per pet out + ~3% base Damage Reduction. 6s of 10% DR every 2m is insanely weak.
• It might feel bad to get the ‘wrong’ pet from Howl of the Pack Leader though they all seem to have some AoE value so we can only hope they’re tuned to all do roughly the same damage.
• No Mercy - This is just a pet charge given there’s no damage component currently attached to this? I don’t see the point of it. At least make it like Beast Master’s pet Stomp so it has a purpose. Rewarding players for hitting Kill Shot seems to be a good start.
  • Description since it’s new: Damage from your Kill Shot sends your pets into a rage, causing all active pets within 20 yds and your Bear to pounce to the target and attack it.
• Lead From the Front - This will likely be kind of weak for Survival, should be tuned accordingly.
• Better Together - This is a placeholder node that offers no actual value and should be baked into Howl of the Pack Leader.
  • Description since it’s new: Howl of the Pack Leader’s cooldown is reduced to 25 seconds. Your pets gain an extra 5% of your attack power.

Sentinel:

• The bird can finally fly, now we just hope that tanks can see the circle under the bird so mobs are not pulled out from the circle.
• A lunar storm every 30s instead of 15s is fine but it’s a damage loss and uptime loss. It wasn’t much stress playing around it but does fix janky haste breakpoints. The current compensation for it should be a little bit better based on napkin math.

Survival:

• I somewhat like that Flanking Strike and Buchery are a choice node, Flanking strike was kind of janky to play around with currently (11.07) as a focus spender that didn’t feel super impactful to press, especially without Exposed Flank (Which has been bugged, not granting the extra Kill Command damage since it was consumed by Bloodseeker for whatever reason) but I also don’t mind it being separate personally.
• Frenzy Strikes (Flanking Strike version) - the attack speed doesn’t do a whole lot for us, just a bit of bomb CDR, perhaps crit or mastery is better for this. Attack speed only benefits Lunge - which I’m still waiting for this talent node to be renamed to something more appropriate since the loss of the increased attack range.
• Merciless Blow (Butchery) seems like a massive unwarranted nerf. At least make it an uncapped bleed now in that case. Otherwise, I don’t see why this is getting gutted so hard.
• I’m shocked nothing was done with Mongoose bite. It’s tuned too weak to be worth taking and is essentially a 2-point investment with Bloody Claws for pure single target due to Tip of The Spear requiring Kill Commands pretty much every other GCD.
• Teir set feedback: We hit WFB so often that I don’t see us keeping Winning Streak up as much as I’d like and 3% is pretty weak. We hit KC/RS a decent bit (more so in raid) but I feel like we don’t have that much filler between WFB casts to proc Winning Streaks. Hard to say without trying it out and maybe WFB can proc a Winning Streak.
• I like the 4p giving a 200% KC and 3 tips when Winning Streak does run out - that’s nice but will take some adjusting on the fly and a little more enthesis on focus management instead of using KC almost every other ability to generate and dump Tip stacks/focus.

Beast Mastery:

• Weird that BM could have 1 pet instead of 2 now; so much for spec identity but good for those like handful that wanted it throughout TWW Beta. They should be numerically equal if 1 pet or 2, not marginally similar.
• Blizzard finally realized Basilisk Collar was not good in practice after endless feedback from Beta due to how it scued damage output towards ST and added additional AoE nodes -all good changes.
• Please just stop trying to make Barrage work and scrap it, it’s a horrible talent that bad hunters take and pull whole rooms with.
• Teir set feedback: I personally will always enjoy when Beastial Wrath gets additional CDR and the set should feel good sending out free Barb Shots (and Stomps).

Marksman:

• There will be a vocal minority of MMs that will complain about the lack of pet - even when not taking Lone Wolf is like a ~2% damage loss. Overall, giving them lust as a separate button is a good change all around, most seemed to absolutely despise taking 3s to pull out a lust pet and dismissing it anyway.
• Aspect of the Hydra (2 target trick shots) is quite niche but good since MM will no longer depend on 3 targets to cleave which is massive but at that point, Trick Shots could have just been changed to 2 targets.
• The rest of the changes seem overall decent.

When is Blizzard hiring his guy? Good takes and well cooked feedback. Even his beta cooks were top teir.

[Vortan-proudmoore]

@Markelf-zuljin

Ghillie suit - Janky to play around with and should also allow us to camouflage in combat - mages already have this with their invisibility.

Great idea! Love this.

@Markelf-zuljin

Hunter’s Mark needs to increase the first and last 20% HP by 5% damage taken while applying a 30y radius debuff aura. Perhaps additionally, the marked target takes increased crit damage so there’s slight enthesis on the marked target.

I feel like there’s an opportunity to combine Hunter’s Mark and Flare. Like if you Flare a target with Hunter’s Mark, Hunter’s Mark will be applied to all targets inside the Flare.

@Markelf-zuljin

Alternatively, an increased crit chance & damage 1h raid buff would synergize well with all 3 hunter specs decently.

It’s the only secondary stat buff missing and all hunter specs love crit. Raid wide crit buff from hunters. Nice!

@Markelf-zuljin

Merciless Blow (Butchery) seems like a massive unwarranted nerf. At least make it an uncapped bleed now in that case. Otherwise, I don’t see why this is getting gutted so hard.

I sort of agree with the nerf here. Merciless Blow was probably not intended to be a single target buff.

@Markelf-zuljin

I’m shocked nothing was done with Mongoose bite. It’s tuned too weak to be worth taking and is essentially a 2-point investment with Bloody Claws for pure single target due to Tip of The Spear requiring Kill Commands pretty much every other GCD.

Agreed, the duality of Raptor Strike and Mongoose is unnecessary friction. I think One should be made to be the only choice and get rid of the other.

@Markelf-zuljin

There will be a vocal minority of MMs that will complain about the lack of pet - even when not taking Lone Wolf is like a ~2% damage loss. Overall, giving them lust as a separate button is a good change all around, most seemed to absolutely despise taking 3s to pull out a lust pet and dismissing it anyway.

Agreed. Utility locked behind a pet is pretty annoying. A dedicated button is something I’ve wanted for a long time. Stopped playing MM over this and a couple other things that have now been fixed.

Great feedback, love to see it!

[Kuuya-eldrethalas]

i just hope they make a glyph that makes it invisible so i can ignore its existence, it’s already outside the game space or w/e

[Torasyn-thrall]

@Kaivax

In Undermine(d), Marksmanship Hunters are losing access to “traditional” pets, like Survival and Beast Mastery have, and are instead permanently joined in battle by an Eagle. Your Eagle will descend from the skies when called upon to help your allies and hinder your enemies.

Oh boy, I remember the last time you guys (Blizzard) tried to take away MM’s ability to use a pet and that didn’t turn out very well due to the sheer outrage it sparked, mainly around the ability to quest, survivability, and player agency. So my question to you is this: “What makes you think it will be any different this time around?”

Many hunter players have a clear attachment to the pets that they have collected over the years with some still having their very first pet that they tamed all the way back in vanilla by their side, to this day. They are more than just pixels to these players, these are their companions. Which is precisely why I agree with a lot of the criticism levied toward this new eagle.

What I, and many others want is the option to continue using our own pets as we have done for the last 20 years and counting. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons why we chose this class and it’s class fantasy to begin with. You even say this in your own post:

@Kaivax

Hunters are in large part defined by their pets and their greater relationship with the natural world of Azeroth and beyond.

Now, let’s move on to Lone Wolf and why I believe that getting rid of it and access to pets in favor of the eagle was a bad idea, imho.

@Kaivax

There were many fantasy and gameplay issues with Lone Wolf. Pets had legitimate utility behind them, such as Bloodlust, defensives, and mobility. Having to summon your pet and lose Lone Wolf to access that utility as Marksmanship often had legitimate experiential and throughput consequences. Why should a Hunter be frustrated to pull out their pet? The discord between Marksmanship Hunters and their pets felt like something that needed to be solved-- and our goal was to solve that problem in a way that not only reembraced pets as a part of Marksmanship’s identity, but also did it in a unique and fantasy-forward way.

If all you wanted to do was solve the issues that Lone Wolf was causing then you only needed to do three things:

• Increase Lone Wolf’s damage bonus to 10%
• Give Hunter’s a dedicated Bloodlust ability baseline and separated from the pet (which you have already done, but should be expanded to the other specs as well.)
• Change Ferocity’s command ability to something new (EX: Doubles Predator’s Thirst bonus and increases healing received by X amount for X seconds)
• When a pet is dismissed, Lone Wolf acts like Grimoire of Sacrifice, granting either Predator’s Thirst, Endurance Training, or Pathfinding as well as the corresponding command spell to the hunter, depending on the pet’s current role (Ferocity, Tenacity, or Cunning).

This will not only ensure that MM hunters can continue using their pets optionally but it also gives petless MM hunters access to the very same toolkit without needing to pull out a pet at all.

For those of us that do use pets, they are incredibly useful in the open world as well as in delves. Their ability to hold aggro with Growl, and Misdirection helps to keep the heat off of us (sometimes, but better than not at all) and Mend Pet is able to keep them up in most cases.

I’ve also seen some players reporting that their pets keep dying in delves. I don’t necessarily have this issue due to running with my bear who has a very nice DR ability whenever it gets to low health. I also strategically use Brann’s potions in tandem with Mend Pet and Exhilaration to keep my bear nice and healthy. If that’s not enough, Smoke Screen, from Dark Ranger’s talents turns Survival of the Fittest into an extra Exhilaration that tops off my pet. I wouldn’t be able to do any of these things with Brann and his new Tank spec (especially healing him).

[Stormbeasts-benediction]

I swear every single time MM has been reworked post-Legion it has been done with 0 input from actual Hunter players and this is yet another bit of proof of that. The out of touch allegations are not being beat.

[Vortan-proudmoore]

@Torasyn-thrall

If all you wanted to do was solve the issues that Lone Wolf was causing then you only needed to do three things:

• Increase Lone Wolf’s damage bonus to 10%
• Give Hunter’s a dedicated Bloodlust ability baseline and separated from the pet (which you have already done, but should be expanded to the other specs as well.)
• Change Ferocity’s command ability to something new (EX: Doubles Predator’s Thirst bonus and increases healing received by X amount for X seconds)
• When a pet is dismissed, Lone Wolf acts like Grimoire of Sacrifice, granting either Predator’s Thirst, Endurance Training, or Pathfinding as well as the corresponding command spell to the hunter, depending on the pet’s current role (Ferocity, Tenacity, or Cunning).

You listed 4 things. My points align with yours in terms of responses:
-They just reduced Lone Wolf from 10% to 5% in TWW so it wouldn’t hurt as much when trying to use pet utility.
-Why would other specs care about lust being separated from the pet when pets for them are required for their rotations to work?
-A new ferocity active spell could be cool!
-Agree with it or not, it would seem that Blizzard is looking to change the theme of the spec, not just gameplay. So, while this might be a decent solution, they want something more unique in line with being a hunter, not a warlock.

Blizzard thinks there are clear pain points with how MM plays specifically around Lone Wolf. They are using the opportunity to make overarching thematic and gameplay changes to address these pain points. There is some middle ground, that after reading this thread, the devs may consider.

I ran a level 8 delve as MM without a pet. As long as I paid attention to the healing potions Brann plops on the ground, I had zero issue staying alive.

[Vortan-proudmoore]

MM clearly has issues that need working out. There has been a lot of discourse over how that should happen. Regardless of how it happens, it needs to. Hopefully, they can find a happy medium. The survival changes coming into TWW were fantastic. While I like the proposed changes, who knows how it will actually feel. In the past the devs have be obstinate to feedback. There seems to be a different philosophy nowadays. Only time will tell.